You Need Chapstick!
by Allison Carroll
Summary: If Voldemort was standing in front of you and telling you that you were about to meet your two best friends' in another world, what would you say?
1. Chapter 1

**You Need Chapstick!**

**A/N:** Not much.Please enjoy!

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Hermione Granger sat in the cold, dark corner of an empty room. She was bundled up in a red Gryffindor sleeping bag that Ron had given her for Christmas a few months earlier, but she hardly cared for. Sure, Ron was a great guy, but Hermione couldn't imagine how much effort house-elves put into making such a worthless piece of cloth. In fact, had the temperature not dropped below twenty degrees, she wouldn't have used it at all. However, she knew that staying alive was important if she, Harry, and Ron ever planned to get out of this prison. In fact, she wasn't even sure where Harry and Ron were. She had been told that the other two had been captured soon after her the week before by death eaters and Hermione couldn't imagine the torture that the other two must be enduring.

A click in the key lock told Hermione that someone was entering. For a moment, hope rose in her chest, but it was immediately extinguished with the entrance of none other than Severus Snape. Snape's thin, wan face tried to smirk at the young girl, but it only achieved in making his already sunken face more hideous than Hermione could remember.

"Ah, Hermione Granger, the witless wonder," said Snape calmly, but in a very cold, raspy voice.

Hermione grimaced at her former teacher and pulled her sleeping bag tighter around her. "It's good to see Voldemort has let you live," Hermione responded indifferently. "Of course, it would probably better be if you were as dead as Dumbledore is lying in his grave…"

Snape's nostrils turned whiter than his skin and a flame burned in his eyes. "Don't you _dare_ talk back to me!" Snape snapped viciously. "You are just like Potter, Granger: you think you're always right about everything. How would you feel if you were _wrong?_"

Hermione glared at Snape with angry thoughts going through her brain. "You killed Dumbledore! You helped Malfoy! You were a traitor to Hogwarts! What is so right about that? And if you feel like divulging anything, then say it now or else say nothing! I don't want to hear bogus tales from a death eater."

Snape's face began to gain color- red as if flames were going to come out of his ears. "You will regret your words, Granger!" Snape pulled his wand out of his pocket and cried, "Accio!"

Hermione felt the sting of the cold air hit her entire body as her sleeping bag was pulled quickly away from her. It was worse than being tortured with any kind of spell- it was the pain of knowing that if you sat in a room with hardly any clothing, you would freeze to death in a matter of hours.

"Kill me, then!" Hermione cried. "I am not afraid of death! If you want to see me suffer so badly then kill me now! I would be happier dead than looking at your ugly, slimy face."

The rude insult hit Snape and Hermione really feared that he _would _kill her. After all, she was no use to him- Voldemort was after Harry, not Hermione. In fact, she was probably worth more being dead. However, Snape only backed away from her until he was standing in the door frame of the cell. "You will regret your words, Granger. Master! She is ready for you!"

Hermione pulled her arms and legs closer to herself as the room seemed to drop ten more degrees. A loud crack hit her eardrums and rang in her head for thirty seconds before she looked up into the face of the world's worse enemy. The horror of seeing a face as revolting left Hermione shocked in her corner and she tried to scream bloody murder, but nothing seemed to come out. This wasn't natural- _he _wasn't natural.

"Ah, little Potter's mudblood friend is ready to die, isn't she? Would you like to join your two companions? It seems they have already made reservations in the next world…" Voldemort said with a sneer. "Any last words, Mudblood?"

Hermione still couldn't breath, but her brain was beginning to take more control of her actions. What could she say? What did she want to say? Did she want to say anything at all? Memories filled Hermione's brain- her parents, her childhood, Hogwarts, the Weasley family, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Ron…then through the mist of recollections, Voldemort's ugly face came into view and the darkness in his eyes caused a different feeling surface in Hermione's heart- that of pity. Unlike her most pleasant life, it was evident that this man- er- thing did not have the wonderful life that Hermione had enjoyed. Instead, he chose to transfer his suffering to his victims and leave them to feel his pain for him. How childish.

Staring hard into his face, Hermione could only think of one thing- "Yeah, I have something to say: you need chapstick. You're lips are horrible!"

Voldemort took a step back with a quizzical expression. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me- you need chapstick."

"Do you think I care anything about physical looks? Do you think a dark lord as powerful as I would even consider something so…outrageous?" Voldemort said with disbelief in his voice.

Hermione shrugged. "Well, I guess that's up to you and seeing as I am about to die, here- take mine," Hermione offered. She pulled out her chapstick and threw it at Voldemort's feet.

Voldemort looked down at the chapstick container and back at the girl before picking it up. "I do not care for material things like this, girl," Voldemort spat and banished it back to her, hitting Hermione's shoulder.

"Oh now, Dark Lord Voldemort, _sir,_ I insist!" Hermione chucked the chapstick so hard that it hit Voldemort hard in the face and he dropped his wand as he cowered in pain. Hermione took this chance while he was distracted to grab Voldemort's wand and apparate herself to a safer place.

Only when Voldemort finally looked up did he realized that his prisoner had escaped and the anger that filled him was incomprehensible. Unlike what Voldemort wanted her to believe, Harry and Ron had not been captured the same night as Hermione. In fact, they hadn't been captured at all. Hermione was being used as the bait to bring the other two in and now Voldemort didn't have her, either. What a disappointing event…someone must pay.

"Severus!" Voldemort barked at the man still standing near the doorway. "I want you to hunt her down. If you don't come back with her, dead or alive, then it will be your life instead! Now go!"

Severus bowed coolly and left the room without so much as a "yes, sir." In fact, he seemed very smug about something. "He shall pay," Voldemort repeated to himself over and over again.

When Voldemort was about to leave the room, he stepped on something- the chapstick. He picked up the little container and stared at it in his hands. Such a muggle-product it was. He wanted to throw it out the window, but something was holding him back. Looking left and then right, Voldemort opened the chapstick and lightly applied it to his lips. Suddenly, a warm sensation filled his body that he could not describe…but he didn't want it to last too long. He had work to do, a mudblood to find, and a Harry Potter to kill. He didn't have time for this type of pleasure. Instead, he dropped the chapstick onto the ground and left the room without looking back.

To Be Continued…


	2. Chapter 2

**You Need Chapstick!**

**Chapter 2**

**A/N: this chapter was written for the sole use of Astronomy. Please thank my dear friend and astronomy expert, Laume, for this. Hope you enjoy! And yes, more to come than this; I can't very well let you all leave without knowing what happens to Voldemort's wand, can I? Or can I?

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Nothing is more silent than the center of the forest when every living creature is asleep for the night. Wild owls pass by without making a sound and even the crickets won't chirp to break the spell. The night was ice cold as the weather was heading towards winter, but the sky still held the glow from the summer nights. This was the atmosphere in which Hermione Granger appeared out of thin air and gasped for breath.

Hermione's eyes flashed at every dark spot around her and she surveyed her surroundings. When she was fully satisfied that she was quite alone, she let out a relieved sigh and fell to the ground. How thankful she was to get away alive from Voldemort's torture! And then she looked down at her hand and a new sense of dread filled her stomach- she now had his wand. Nothing could be worse than this: she was as good as dead where she stood.

However, Hermione never gives up hope. If Harry had taught her one thing in life it was that you could survive anything despite the circumstances. Analyzing the gravity of her situation, Hermione felt that her best bet was to run. There is no real way to track a wizard's wand and as she didn't know where she was, she believed it to be impossible for herself to be found as long as she kept moving. Getting back onto her feet, Hermione held out the wand in front of her.

"_Lumos!" _she whispered and the tip of the wand glowed light green. It was as bright as it would have been with her wand, but it still worked. The light revealed a thick cluster of trees all around her stretching all the way to the sky where the only light source from above was the moon peering at her between branches. With great haste, Hermione set off in another direction, not quite sure exactly where she was quite yet.

It took nearly forty-five minutes for Hermione to reach an empty clearing where she could look around more clearly. It was evident by her environment that she was a long way from any civilization. The only light besides her wand was the lights appearing in the sky- wait, that's it! She didn't take Astronomy for nothing, did she? Hermione looked into the sky and found the brightest constellation- Orion. The constellation was located in the middle of the sky and above it was Polaris. Canis Major was to the south-west of Orion and the constellation Taurus was to the north. That means she must be facing south! However, as useful as that information is, that still didn't tell her what she wanted to know.

"This is dead useful," Hermione groaned sarcastically.

It was then that the most unlikely thing approached her- a thestral. She had never seen one before, but instantly recognized it from the pictures in her magical creature's books. It's black scaly body and wings glistened in the moonlight just as it would on a snake or a lizard. Hermione moved toward it cautiously and held out her hand. The horse-like creature backed away, but after a moment, it took a step closer to see Hermione better.

A shiver ran down Hermione's back as she remembered that thestrals are often considered bad luck and that only those who could see them had also seen someone die. Hermione racked her brain, trying think of who she had seen died, but she couldn't remember. So much had occurred since the war began and everything just seemed like a blur of words. In the blur of memory, though, another fact came into light: thestrals had an accurate sense of direction and that was exactly what needed. If only she could get him to trust enough to let her mount it…

The thestral sensed Hermione's desire and backed away. "Please, please, take me home!" Hermione cried. "I've been tortured and freezing and I lost my chapstick…_please!_" The thestral looked at her curiously and finally deciding that she wasn't a threat after all, walked towards her so that she could touch it.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Hermione whispered as she pat its scaly body. The creature bent down low enough for Hermione to climb on and once she felt secure, the huge wings on either side of her picked her up into the air.

Even though Hermione felt this was her only chance of survival, she couldn't help feeling apprehensive about flying. She was never as good as Harry and Ron and every time she mounted a broom, she would always get sick to her stomach. She had always concluded that she was never made for flying. So, to keep her mind off of the ground that was moving fast below her, she turned back to the stars above her that was distinct in the bluish-black night.

The stars were more crystal clear then ever and as she examined each one's brightness, she began to notice something different. While Orion's constellation was commonly in the middle of the sky, it was also a little to the south and Polaris as well as the Big Dipper were also shifted away from the horizon by twenty five degrees than they would be normally. This meant that Hermione was not only in the Northern Hemisphere, but she must be somewhere very far north- like northern Europe or Canada. This news brought a flood of new hope. At least she wasn't trapped in the middle of the rain forest in Brazil or the jungle in Africa!

Lights appeared in the distance and Hermione was relieved to see some signs of human life. Soon, the thestral passed the lights and moved on over many cities and Hermione even spotted the Eiffel Tower which signified that she had apparated somewhere to the east of France as she was hoping that the thestral would be taking her back to England. Hermione felt much more at ease and even began to drift off into an exhausted sleep. Although she was still freezing cold, she knew that in matter of hours she would be at the Burrow. Nothing could be more comforting news than that.

"Good thing I paid attention to Professor Sinistra in Astronomy," Hermione said to herself. "Or else I would be really lost."


End file.
